COFAR blog

Starting last year, Lisa Attenazio, the mother of a man with neurodevelopmental disorders, suddenly found herself fighting not only the state system of care in Massachusetts, but the court system as well.

For 27 years, Lisa maintains, things had gone smoothly for her and her son. But then her son’s girlfriend moved in with him, a state-funded attorney got involved, and things suddenly came crashing down. Lisa’s son has autism, aphasia, a disorder that impedes language comprehension and memory, and anxiety.

First, Lisa’s guardianship of her 27-year-old son was suspended, and a state-funded, temporary guardian was appointed in her place. This happened in August 2024, five months after her son’s girlfriend moved into his Winchester apartment with him and helped him retain the attorney, according to Lisa.

The attorney accused Lisa, without evidence, of “terrorizing her son” and petitioned in probate court to remove her as guardian and replace her with a guardian employed by the state.

Then in September 2024, Lisa was accused by the girlfriend of assaulting her and of violating a no-trespassing order that the girlfriend and Lisa’s son had taken out against her. And in June of this year, even Lisa’s son accused her of assault against him.

Lisa contends the criminal assault charges and the attorney’s allegations were manufactured against her out of whole cloth, and that she has never harmed anyone. She has many friends and supporters who say the same thing.

She claims her son was manipulated into pressing the assault charge against her and was also manipulated into frequently calling the police against her. She said he had never done that prior to his girlfriend moving in.

But Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan nevertheless pursued the felony assault charges against Lisa in both instances. Lisa’s son was prepared to testify against her in each case. (We are not disclosing either Lisa’s son’s name or his girlfriend’s name in this post.)

For a time, it appeared the probate court, the Winchester police, the District Attorney and even the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and the appointed guardian had lined up together against Lisa to destroy her relationship with her son. “I was portrayed as someone whom I am not, and the lies, manipulation, brainwashing, and coercion have kept coming,” Lisa said.

Found not guilty

On Monday of last week (September 29), Lisa was found not guilty in Woburn District Court of the charge of assaulting her son. Judge Michael Callahan agreed that there was no evidence to indicate Lisa had assaulted him.

Roughly a month earlier (on August 19), the felony charge against Lisa of assaulting the girlfriend was dismissed after the girlfriend pleaded her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

But these two instances of vindication have come at a big cost, Lisa said. She is still fighting to get her guardianship back, and believes her son has regressed mentally and emotionally as the months of separation from her have gone by.

In August, Lisa even had to move out of her apartment, which was in the same building as her son’s apartment. She said she was living in constant fear of either her son or his girlfriend calling the police on her. Her court-appointed attorney in the assault cases against her, Paul Lawton, told her this was the saddest case he had ever seen.

By way of disclosure, I have acted on behalf of COFAR as an advocate for Lisa in probate court.

Mother supported son’s independence

Lisa had always gone the extra mile to be the best mother she could to her son.

In March, I first wrote about Lisa’s case, but used a pseudonym for her at the time. We are using her real name now because the issue has, in a key sense, shifted from her son to her.

Lisa contends her son is susceptible to manipulation by people who may not have his best interests at heart. She said this has been well-documented throughout his life.

As we originally reported, Lisa’s son wanted independence, and Lisa arranged with his clinicians to let him have his own apartment in Winchester in November 2023. At the advice of the clinicians with the Lurie Center for Autism, a division of Mass. General Hospital, Lisa herself moved into the same building, two floors below her son so she could be his “’safety net,’” in the words of the clinicians.

A few months later, in February 2024, Lisa’s son’s girlfriend moved in with him.  Lisa said she believes her son’s girlfriend is not cognitively impaired although she is legally blind. Lisa said, however, that the girlfriend is able to see well enough to ride an E-bike and a motor scooter in the town of Winchester.

In March 2024, Lisa said, the girlfriend arranged for her son to be represented by a state-funded attorney. Lisa suddenly found herself accused by the attorney of being “emotionally unstable,” of “terrorizing” her son, and of refusing services for him. She said she was even accused at the time by the girlfriend of stealing her son’s car, when in fact, she owned the car.

Despite the fact that no questions had been raised about Lisa as a parent for the previous 27 years, a Middlesex County Probate court judge appointed Eva Toscano, who has worked for the Department of Mental Health, as temporary guardian for Lisa’s son in August 2024. Toscano had never known or met him. In court, DDS has supported the removal of Lisa as guardian.

Lisa maintains this all occurred because a guardian ad litem, appointed by the probate court judge, issued a report on the matter that was biased against Lisa. Our analysis of Lisa’s notes, which are based on the non-public GAL report, support her conclusion.

Lisa was then forbidden from talking to her son’s doctors, and even from entering her son’s apartment after her son and his girlfriend obtained a no-trespass order against her in September 2024. The Winchester Police Department subsequently filed a no-contact order with Lisa’s son.  Lisa was also removed as her son’s representative payee for his Social Security payments.

Facing potentially years in prison

In September 2024, at the time of the issuance of the no-trespass order, Lisa was accused by the girlfriend of having assaulted her, which Lisa denied, and with violating the no-trespass order. Lisa now found herself facing criminal assault against a disabled person, a felony which carries up to a three-year prison sentence, and trespassing charges.

Lisa maintains that it was the girlfriend who assaulted her during a confrontation between the two of them in the son’s apartment. The Middlesex D.A., however, charged only Lisa in the matter. Lisa said the police ignored her when she suggested that the girlfriend be arrested.

A trial was set in Woburn District court for August 19 on the assault charge. However, just prior to the scheduled start of the trial, Lawton, Lisa’s attorney, asked the judge to appoint an on-duty criminal defense attorney to inform the girlfriend that if she did testify against Lisa, she could open herself up to prosecution for assault against Lisa.

That appointed attorney also advised the girlfriend that she could assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The girlfriend reportedly admitted to the attorney that she had been the aggressor and had struck Lisa first.

When the girlfriend was brought into the courtroom, the judge asked if she intended to plead the Fifth, and she said yes. At that point, the prosecutor said she had no basis for prosecuting the assault charge against Lisa, and asked that it be dismissed.

Second assault case also fizzles

On June 27, nine months after the first alleged assault incident, Lisa was accused by her son of assaulting him. Lisa was at that point facing two sets of assault charges as a result, and potentially five years in prison.

The police report regarding the second case involving Lisa’s son implied to us that her son was slightly injured by accident, through no fault of Lisa’s. On September 29, Woburn District Court Judge Callahan agreed. He found Lisa not guilty of the second assault charge.

Lisa maintains that her son was turned against her by his girlfriend in a way that doesn’t fit his personality. “He is not able to fully understand or comprehend or fully realize what’s going on but because he is rule governed,” Lisa said. “He will listen and do exactly what people tell him. Where is his voice in all this?”

Police reports disputed

Lisa was arrested on the first assault charge on September 17, 2024, after she allegedly violated the no-trespass order obtained by her son and entered his apartment. She maintains that her son obtained the no-trespass order at the urging of his girlfriend.

The Winchester Police report of the incident states that after being informed of the no-trespass order,  Lisa went to her son’s apartment to collect some of her belongings there and to give her son her key fob for his apartment.

Lisa said she didn’t think the no-trespass order had yet gone into effect because her son led her into the apartment. She said she knocked on the door of the girlfriend’s bedroom to pick up some of the belongings, which she believed were there. The girlfriend claimed Lisa barged into the room.

According to the police report, the girlfriend said that after Lisa barged into the room, Lisa rushed at her and pulled her hair, struck her left brow with a closed fist, and then struck her in the left collarbone.  The girlfriend also told police she “is almost fully blind and is legally disabled.”

Lisa told the police that when she entered the room, the girlfriend began to swear and scream at her and then shoved her and scratched her face and arms. Lisa claimed the girlfriend put her into a headlock, and she had to call her son to come and help her.

Although the two accounts were sharply conflicting, the police arrested only Lisa and booked her and fingerprinted her at the police station.

On August 19 of this year, the girlfriend reportedly admitted she struck Lisa first in the incident. As noted, the girlfriend subsequently asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, leading to the dismissal of the case.

Second assault case was an apparent accident

Lisa said the second case in which she allegedly assaulted her son occurred on June 27 when she tugged on his sleeve as he tried to leave her apartment following an argument about his use of the car. She said she was concerned that she remained responsible for paying for the insurance on the car even though she had been ordered to cease all contact with her son.

The Winchester police report of that incident states that Lisa “did assault and beat” her son – a charge that carries a potential sentence of 2 ½ years in prison. But that report described what largely appears to have been an accident.

According to the report, Lisa’s son called the police to the scene and told them he had attempted to leave Lisa’s apartment during the argument over the car, and that Lisa grabbed his t-shirt. The report stated that the son backed away, causing the shirt to tear. Then, it said, he lost his balance and fell backwards against the wall of the hallway and received a red mark or scrape on his back.

Lisa maintained that the police report was inaccurate in that respect. She said she grabbed the sleeve on his t-shirt and that after the sleeve started to tear, she let go, and her son tore the rest of his shirt. She said her son then turned and tripped and fell against the wall at her neighbor’s doorway, some 10 feet away.

The police report noted that Lisa told the police she was not being violent when she grabbed her son’s shirt, and that she would never hurt her son. She said she had offered to put aloe on her son’s back where he had scraped it. (Lisa said she actually did put aloe on his back.) The son later declined an offer by the police to be checked out at a hospital or to receive EMS assistance.

Lisa was nevertheless charged with assault and battery and was handcuffed, taken to the police station and kept in the lockup for seven hours before being released on $200 bail.

Lisa maintains that the Winchester police do not like her, possibly because they were frequently been called by her son or by his girlfriend to the apartment when there were disputes with Lisa.

Mother’s financial assistance continued

Despite the fact that the girlfriend and son had both filed the assault charges against Lisa, she said she continued to be expected, even by the state, to provide financial assistance to them.

For instance, Lisa said that on July 27, a month after filing the assault charge against her, her son left a note on her apartment door, asking if she was “still willing” to provide him with money to attend a summer camp in Maine for a week, and that she should leave it in an envelope in her car. The note ended, “Love and miss you xoxo.”

Lisa said the money would have been used by both her son and his girlfriend for spending-money at the camp in Maine. Even Toscano, the state-paid guardian, sent Lisa a message that day, also asking her to leave the money in her car for her son.

Lisa said she did not provide any money to her son for the summer camp, but the following day – July 28 – she received an alert from her son’s bank that he had incurred an overdraft in his checking account. So she did send $200 to his account to prevent other checks from bouncing.

Previously, on May 27, I emailed both the DDS attorney in Lisa’s probate court case, Barbara Green-Whitbeck, and her son’s court-appointed attorney, Mary Ann Remillard, expressing COFAR’s concern that Lisa was “expected and depended upon to act as both (her son’s) protector and financial provider even as her guardianship and authority as representative payee have been removed.”

At that time, I noted that Lisa’s son and his girlfriend had taken a trip to New Jersey and New York. While they were in New Jersey, they were unable to rent a car because they were using the son’s debit card and didn’t have sufficient funds on hand to pay a deposit required when debit cards are used. At that time, the son texted Lisa, to seek help. Lisa was forced to go to her bank to transfer $300 into her sons account in order to allow the car rental process to proceed.

What would have happened, I asked in my email to Green-Whitbeck and Remillard, if Lisa hadn’t been available? Her son and his girlfriend would have been stuck somewhere in New Jersey.

Neither Green-Whitbeck nor Remillard have responded to my email.

It remains puzzling to us that no one with official authority in this case appears to be able to see this matter from Lisa’s perspective.

Thankfully, both of the criminal cases against Lisa have now gone away — the first one when the girlfriend asserted her Fifth Amendment right, and the second when the judge found Lisa not guilty.

But Lisa’s life and her relationship with her son have been totally upended. We hope justice and common sense will prevail in this case and that Lisa will one day get her reputation and her son and guardianship back.